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Wednesday, 15 January 2014

#Excerpt from D.P. Denman's Dancer's Heart @dpdenman #LGBT #Romance

Drew stood a few feet from the stage, arms folded across his chest watching the rehearsal of the act that made Glitters famous. They were the hottest drag club in town and that routine had a lot to do with it. However, his attention wasn’t on the choreography. It was on the man at the center of it.

Simon Leander had the sort of beauty hours in the gym couldn’t manufacture. Dark blonde hair flowed to the shoulders of a wiry, toned body that came with dancing for a living. Sparkling blue eyes held something sweet and almost innocent and then there was his smile. He wanted to kiss that smile.

He watched the other men on the stage pass Simon from hand to hand with graceful gestures as they simulated thrusting against him. Hands slid across his body that looked almost naked in the flesh-tone costume petting him, folding him, bending him as they pretended to take him in time to the music. The act was both hot and disturbing and he scowled at the display. He knew it was just an act but it bothered him anyway. Simon deserved better. He could imagine the way it should have looked, tender kisses and gentle caresses, loving that body the way Simon deserved.

He jerked the fantasy to a halt and shifted his attention somewhere else. That wasn’t going to do him any good.

“Hold it. Just stop!” Marshall bellowed over the music, waving his arms to get the attention of the kid running the sound.

An instant later, the song died in mid note and movement on the stage ground to a halt as Marshall stalked up the steps.

“What the hell are you people doing up here? Positions are wrong. Steps are late. Is everybody on their period or are you all just hung over?”

“We’re hitting our marks,” one of the dancers argued as he puffed for air, a hand on his hip.

“Oh really? Because from out there,” Marshall jabbed a finger to the almost empty room, “you look like a bunch of buffalos doing the goddamn nutcracker!”

Marshall liked to yell and it didn’t take new dancers long to figure that out. They had all learned not to take the volume too seriously but that day he had a valid reason to scream. The last rehearsal before a performance shouldn’t look that rough.

“Simon, honey, you and Val are fine. You three,” he turned a scathing glare on the others, “are going to do it again and again and again and if we have to stay here all night we will,” he waved in the air, confident the sound guy would see it. “Again,” he demanded.

The music started and the dancing continued from where they’d left off with Marshall screaming and clapping out the beats.